Picture Books (2019)

‘Ada’s Violin’ by Susan Hood

‘Ada’s Vio­lin’ by Susan Hood

From award-win­ning author Susan Hood and illus­tra­tor Sal­ly Wern Com­port comes the extra­or­di­nary true tale of the Recy­cled Orches­tra of Paraguay, an orches­tra made up of chil­dren play­ing instru­ments built from recy­cled trash.

Ada Ríos grew up in Cateu­ra, a small town in Paraguay built on a land­fill. She dreamed of play­ing the vio­lin, but with lit­tle mon­ey for any­thing but the bare essen­tials, it was nev­er an option … until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He want­ed to give the chil­dren of Cateu­ra some­thing spe­cial, so he made them instru­ments out of mate­ri­als found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada – and her town – for­ev­er changed. Now, the Recy­cled Orches­tra plays venues around the world, spread­ing their mes­sage of hope and inno­va­tion.

‘Morris Mole’ by Dan Yaccarino

‘Mor­ris Mole’ by Dan Yac­cari­no

Meet Mor­ris Mole – he has always been a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent. When the moles are run­ning low on food, it’s up to clever Mor­ris to save the day. With a lit­tle help from an unex­pect­ed friend and a lot of dig­ging, Mor­ris learns that even the small­est crea­tures can do big things.

‘Sun and Moon’ — Folk Tales by Various Artists by Bhajju Shyam

‘Sun and Moon’ — Folk Tales by Var­i­ous Artists by Bha­jju Shyam

Var­i­ous folk and indige­nous artists from across India have con­tributed to this vol­ume. Many of them are among the best known in their tra­di­tions, and the list includes the award-win­ning Gond artists Bha­jju Shyam and Dur­ga Bai from Bhopal, India. It also includes artists such as Ram­s­ingh Urveti, Ramb­haros Jha and Suni­ta with whom Tara has worked on books ear­li­er.

Part of every­day life, yet rich in sym­bol­ic mean­ing, ren­der­ings of the sun and the moon are present in all folk and trib­al art tra­di­tions of India. They are always in rela­tion­ship with each oth­er. Agrar­i­an soci­eties keep track of time by refer­ring to mark­ers in the sea­son­al vari­a­tions of the sun, moon, and the plan­ets. Over the course of time, they have also woven won­der­ful sto­ries and myths around them. Here, for the first time, is a col­lec­tion of unusu­al sto­ries and exquis­ite art from some of the finest liv­ing artists, on this most uni­ver­sal of themes.

‘Teacup’ by Rebecca Young

‘Teacup’ by Rebec­ca Young

A boy must leave his home and find anoth­er. He brings with him a teacup full of earth from the place where he grew up, and sets off to sea. Some days, the jour­ney is peace­ful, and the skies are cloud­less and bright. Some days, storms threat­en to over­turn his boat. And some days, the small­est amount of hope grows into some­thing glo­ri­ous. At last, the boy finds land, but it doesn’t feel com­plete … until anoth­er trav­eller joins him, bear­ing the seed to build a new home.

‘The Book of Mistakes’ by Corinna Luyken

‘The Book of Mis­takes’ by Corin­na Luyken

Almost any child knows the feel­ing: one errant mark or smudge, and an in-progress draw­ing or paint­ing is as good as ruined. Not so, says Luyken, in a children’s book debut that’s as can­did as it is encour­ag­ing. The pages are vir­tu­al­ly blank, at first, and read­ers watch as a char­ac­ter takes shape: a girl’s round head appears, traced in pen­cil, but one of her large, dark eyes winds up notice­ably larg­er than the oth­er. “Mak­ing the oth­er eye even big­ger was anoth­er mis­take,” Luyken admits as the prob­lem seems to get worse. “But the glass­es – they were a good idea.” Addi­tion­al “mis­takes” mount: the girl winds up with an over­long neck and an odd “frog-cat-cow thing” makes an appear­ance, but Luyken finds a way to turn each one into a suc­cess by chang­ing direc­tion or per­spec­tive: “The sec­ond frog-cat-cow thing made a very nice rock,” she writes after ink­ing it in. The idea of set­backs being oppor­tu­ni­ties in dis­guise is no stranger to pic­ture book pages, but rarely has it been illu­mi­nat­ed with such style, imag­i­na­tion, and com­pas­sion, illus­trat­ing that, at the end of the day, we are all works in progress, too.

‘The Thing’ by Simon Puttock

‘The Thing’ by Simon Put­tock

One day, the Thing falls from the sky and four strangers stum­ble across it.

Togeth­er they decide to work togeth­er to take care of the Thing. But before long a media cir­cus builds up around the crea­ture they are pro­tect­ing and the debate about the Thing spreads far around the world.

What is the Thing?
Who does it belong to?
What does it do?
And is it any use for any­thing at all?

This cap­ti­vat­ing pic­ture book will be many things to many peo­ple: a sto­ry about thought­ful­ness, an adven­ture in friend­ship and an intrigu­ing and gen­tle social com­men­tary on the search for mean­ing in mod­ern life.